New to Orthodoxy

Name: Dorian
Patron Saint: St. Mary of Egypt

How long have you been Orthodox? I was chrismated in the Church last June, in 2008. My husband and my one-year-old daughter were also brought into the Orthodox Church at that time.

How did you journey to Orthodoxy? Well, the short answer is that God knew where I needed to be. But here's the long answer as well.
I wasn't necessarily searching for a new expression of my Christian faith. I had grown up in a Christian home, mostly attending a Southern Baptist church. I'd always been involved in church, in the youth group, the choir, small group Bible studies. I was very comfortable being a Southern Baptist.
My husband had been baptised in a Presbyterian church, and so when we were first married we did a lot of church hopping. We visited churches in my denomination and his, and then we visited an Episcopalian church one Sunday to attend the baptism of his friends' children. My husband really loved the feeling of the high-church worship. We eventually moved to Colorado Springs, and when we were looking for a church, we decided to attend a beautiful Episcopalian church. I started to fall in love with the liturgy of the church. I wondered where it came from. I had attended several Roman Catholic masses in my youth with my friends, and I noticed a lot of the Episcopal liturgy was very similar to the Catholic liturgy.
My curiosity was piqued. I wasn't really interested in becoming Catholic, but I wondered how far back the liturgy went. Did it go back to before the Great Schism?
It was at this time that I remembered a friend who had converted to the Orthodox faith. When she had converted a few years before, I knew nothing of Orthodoxy. I hadn't even heard of it, and thought it might be some sort of cult. After her conversion, I checked out the Orthodox Church in America website at www.oca.org. I read a little about Orthodoxy and felt relieved to see Orthodox people are Christians, too. But then I promptly forgot all about Orthodoxy. It wasn't until I started wondering about the liturgy that the Orthodox Church came back to my mind. I knew that it claimed to be the original Church of the Apostles. I became even more curious.
I was too chicken to just go to an Orthodox church, even with my husband. I looked up a local parish online and emailed the priest to let him know that I was interested, but a little apprehensive. He suggested that I come to a Saturday vespers service first. I did just that.
I can still remember quite distincly those first moments of walking into the narthex and having the aroma of incense wash over me. The choir was practicing still before vespers began and I nearly wept, it was so beautiful. In fact I was overcome by the beauty that was all around me. The scent of the beeswax candles, the glimmering icons, the chanting, the singing, the psalms and prayers being offered up to God. It was amazing. I knew I was home.
That was July of 2005. I became a catechumin in November of that year, but I did not hurry into converting to Orthodoxy. My priest, Father Anthony, really stressed that I attend all the services that I could and let the life of the Church infuse itself in me rather than spend my time learning about Orthodoxy from books. (I did still read a lot of good books, though. Becoming Orthodox and many of the books by Frederica Matthews Green were very helpful to me.)
When my daughter was born in 2007, I had decided that the time had come to fully embrace Orthodoxy and be chrismated. However, my husband asked me to wait for him, because he wanted to come into the Church together with me and our daughter. Father Anthony thought that was a great idea.
A few months later we moved to Kansas City to be closer to family and by chance we found the mission at St. James. I'd just been driving by, on my way to a restaurant with my sister-in-law when I saw the church's sign in a strip mall. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. We started attending St. James and 11 months later our daughter was baptised and my husband and I were christmated.
I feel so blessed to have found the Orthodox faith.

Were there any obstacles or stumbling blocks on your path towards Orthodoxy? Yes, of course! I think perhaps my two biggest hurdles to overcome were what to do about Mary, Jesus Mother, and my relationship to the priest. I'd grown up with pastors and ministers but never a priest. It was weird for me to call someone "father" at first, and I wasn't sure what to do or say to my priest. It seemed to be a much more spiritually intimate relationship than my former pastor/parishoner relations. It was a little scary for me at first, but Father Anthony is such a great guy that I quickly warmed to him.

As for my other hurdle, well, being raised protestant, I didn't really know much about Mary, or hear much about her other than at Christmas time. Otherwise, she was dismissed as someone "those Catholics worship instead of Jesus." There's a lot of "Rome-aphobia" in the protestant world, and I was a product of that. I was very uncomfortable praying to Mary, calling her the Mother of God, and kissing her icon. I struggled with Mary for a long time. But one day I came to a point where I decided to trust the wisdom of the Church. If the Church had such great esteem for Mary, then maybe there was more to her than I was seeing. I decided that even though I was still not able to understand Mary, I would submit myself in obedience to the Church's teachings, even if my upbringing didn't agree with those teachings. At that moment, the burden of wrestling with Mary melted away. My heart completely changed and I can only credit that to the Lord God.


What do you like about St. James Orthodox Mission? I love the intimacy of a small parish. Everyone knows everyone else. I'm greeted by name. My daughter is a welcome part of the church community in addition to me and my husband. The hearts of the parishoners are truly made of gold!


What advice would you give to another catechumin preparing for baptism? Go to the services. Sing in the choir, even if you're not good at it or your intimidated by Byzantian/Russian flavored music. There is so much to learn in the hymnody of the Church! Subscribe to Ancient Faith Radio and download podcasts from all sorts of people that have been there and done that and can help steer you in the right direction. Pray, pray, pray and allow the Lord to open the eyes of your heart to the Body of Christ, the Orthodox Church.